Written and collected by Zia H Shah MD

Epigraph:  

“Watch your thoughts, for they become words.
Watch your words, for they become actions.
Watch your actions, for they become habits.
Watch your habits, for they become character.
Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.” Lao Tzu

From Hate Speech to Hate Crime: Hateful ads against Muslims went on display in September 2012, in New York City Subway

A woman was charged with second-degree murder as a hate crime yesterday for pushing an Indian immigrant off a subway platform to his death, in New York city, prosecutors said.

The accused, Erika Menendez, 31, of Rego Park, told detectives she attacked Sunando Sen, 46, because she “thought it would be cool” and because of long-standing prejudice against “Muslims, Hindus and Egyptians,” whom she blamed for 9/11, Newsday reported.

The victim Sunando Sen was living in USA for 20 years

The woman, Erika Menendez, selected her victim because she believed him to be a Muslim or a Hindu, Richard A. Brown, the Queens district attorney, said.

“The defendant is accused of committing what is every subway commuter’s nightmare: Being suddenly and senselessly pushed into the path of an oncoming train,” Mr. Brown said in an interview, as reported by the Wall Street Journal, on December 29, 2012.

In a statement, Mr. Brown quoted Ms. Menendez, “in sum and substance,” as having told the police: “I pushed a Muslim off the train tracks because I hate Hindus and Muslims ever since 2001 when they put down the twin towers I’ve been beating them up.” Ms. Menendez conflated the Muslim and Hindu faiths in her comments to the police and in her target for attack, officials said.

If the theory of branding and advertisement has any truth then it is self evident to me that constant exploitation of the terrorism by 19 hijackers of 9/11 by the media and more recent posting of anti-Islam ads in the New York subways has everything to do with this heinous hate crime by Erika Menendez.

Advertising is a form of communication for marketing and used to encourage or persuade an audience (viewers, readers or listeners; sometimes a specific group) to continue or take some new action. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common. In Latin, ad vertere means “to turn the mind toward.” The purpose of advertising may also e to reassure employees or shareholders that a company is viable or successful.

Commercial advertisers often seek to generate increased consumption of their products or services through “branding,” which involves associating a product name or image with certain qualities in the minds of consumers.

Hate especially when advertised at a communal level  is like a fire it can spread and engulf the whole surrounding.  Anyone consumed with hate can move from hating 19 hijackers to all Muslims to even all Hindus.  Fire knows no boundaries, it can spread afar.

Those who are blind to the link between hate speech and hate crimes, have not read modern advertisement theory.  Every ad that you see in television or read in a newspaper is a testimony to the fact that hateful speech leads to dangerous hateful crimes sooner or later.  Encyclopedia Britannica states:

Advertisement, also called ad ,  a public announcement—generally print, audio, or video—made to promote a commodity, service, or idea through various media, including billboards, direct mail, print magazines and newspapers, radio, television, and the World Wide Web. While advertising is used to a limited extent in every modern society, often by some agency or service of government, it is in countries with economies based on competition that advertising is ubiquitous.

The alleged murderer Erika Menendez may be labeled with different psychiatric diagnoses as time passes, but, it will and should not vindicate the hateful ads in the subways, in the minds of insightful people, who have studied the psychological recesses of human mind and advertisement theory.

At least it demands an inquiry from the promoters of the hate ads as to what are they advertising and what do they want to gain from these advertisements.

This murder of an innocent Hindu is not an isolated hate crime arising out of free license for Islamophobia and propaganda against the Muslims in the public square, in USA.  This year, on August 5, we also witnessed killing of six innocent Sikhs in their temple in Wisconsin by a hateful gunman, who could not distinguish between the Muslims and the Sikhs, as he expressed his version of Islamophobia.

In 2010, spending on advertising was estimated at $142.5 billion in the United States and $467 billion worldwide ^[4]

Either all this spending is waste of money or these hate crimes need to be linked with hate speech of the hatemongers.  Greater the charisma or the audience of the hateful speaker the greater is his or her contribution to hate crimes.